Welcome to the first SYKE newsletter of the new 2020/21 financial year.
With everyone in the midst of managing Covid-19, I thought I’d take the opportunity to give you my thoughts on the current crisis, and also bring you up to speed with a few changes at SYKE that are designed to support you through this period.
Firstly, can I take the opportunity to thank my team of 60+ legal engineers who, although used to working from home, being agile and operating 100% remotely, have had to pull out all the stops to ensure every implementation project we’re managing hasn’t skipped a beat. The number of Zoom and Microsoft Teams meetings has shot up exponentially and that’s just the ones involving my extended family and impromptu quiz nights with friends!
Senior Leadership Changes at SYKE
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- Lewis Bretts
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- John Buxton
In order to better support our customers, I’ve created a new management structure at the top of our organisation. Lewis Bretts is now our chief operating officer, and his remit is to ensure customer satisfaction in every deployment. Lewis has been with SYKE for over a year, so many of you will already know him well. Lewis reports directly to me and is helping build the pipeline of resource necessary to match our growth. We’ve gone from a team of 20 this time last year to more than 60 today, and I expect that trajectory to continue in spite of the obvious impact of the Coronavirus.
I’ve also promoted John Buxton to VP new business development. John has 20+ years’ experience at the very top levels of management in organisations like Walmart, Heinz, GE Capital and others. He has been with us since June last year and is doing a great job ensuring we are strategically driving the business forward, always with our customers’ best interests at heart, while harnessing the latest technology partners across the globe.
Finally, I’ve also asked Dom Burch to join the senior leadership team as VP marketing. Dom, in addition to growing the SYKE brand and leading our PR efforts, is also the face of our new podcast ‘Legal Tech Made Simple’ and the author of all our social content. He’ll no doubt be in touch with many of you in the coming weeks to invite you onto his weekly show.
Covid 19
I blogged last month about how I felt Coronavirus would be the catalyst that would change how companies do business forever. Nothing in the past few weeks has changed my point of view, in fact, one of our software partners has seen a 100% increase in enquiries for e-signature support alone. Technology is our friend at times like this, enabling us to stay in touch with loved ones, work from home, and help keep the economy going while the country battens down the hatches. We remain on standby to provide you with technical assistance, temporary resource, or point solutions such as identifying clauses in existing contracts like force majeure. Our agile team is based globally enabling us to operate across time zones and 24/7 to meet your needs.
Outlook for 2020
In times like these, it is daft to make predictions or look too far off into the future, but my 2020 vision for the rest of the year is that all legal teams, be they in-house or at law firms, will come under increasing pressure to work smarter, reduce costs, and be more efficient. Software has a role to play here, but change management is as much about managing people through the process as it is about introducing new tech. We’re here to help.
Launching SYKL – The Legal Tech Assessment Process
Finally, I’m pleased to announce the launch of SYKL. My team and I have developed a sophisticated legal tech software assessment tool that enables us to efficiently rate and rank multiple legal tech software solutions (in relation to a customer’s specific needs) in a matter of hours. This process creates a SYKL scorecard matrix that can be interrogated in detail or summarised into a one-page review of all the shortlisted products.
SYKL scores for each product assessed are indexed using an algorithm that enables us to rank legal tech software solutions and compare the market at the touch of a button.
I believe SYKL is an extremely efficient use of a client’s budget at the RFP stage, and draws down on our legal engineers’ vast experience of configuring and implementing these products in the real world.
Please get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
Stay safe, kind regards
Alistair
CEO & Founder SYKE
